Torture Still Doesn’t Work
It’s difficult to prove a negative, but if you want good evidence that a policy of legalized torture is not an effective intelligence gathering mechanism, I think you don’t need to look much further than how shaky the specific details of the counterclaims coming from the Bushies and the torture apologists are. The best they can come up with is the claim that torturing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed helped them foil the so-called Library Tower plot to blow up the US Bank Tower (not sure where the library comes from). But as Tim Noah points out, there are all kinds of problems with this claim. Indeed, the argument is such a mess that the fact that the alleged plot was foiled before KSM was even captured isn’t even the only problem with it:
What clinches the falsity of Thiessen’s claim, however (and that of the memo he cites, and that of an unnamed Central Intelligence Agency spokesman who today seconded Thessen’s argument) is chronology. In a White House press briefing, Bush’s counterterrorism chief, Frances Fragos Townsend, told reporters that the cell leader was arrested in February 2002, and “at that point, the other members of the cell” (later arrested) “believed that the West Coast plot has been canceled, was not going forward” [italics mine]. A subsequent fact sheet released by the Bush White House states, “In 2002, we broke up [italics mine] a plot by KSM to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast.” These two statements make clear that however far the plot to attack the Library Tower ever got—an unnamed senior FBI official would later tell the Los Angeles Times that Bush’s characterization of it as a “disrupted plot” was “ludicrous”—that plot was foiled in 2002. But Sheikh Mohammed wasn’t captured until March 2003.
I might add that this sorry tale further illustrates some of the problems with torture. You can’t very well say “well, we brutally tortured this guy dozens of times and it was all basically pointless.” Having ordered the torture, you now have a bunch of torturers, orderers of torture, etc. invested in overstating the utility of torture. And of course if torture worked so well on the one guy, why not torture some more people? Indeed, the whole rotten idea of torturing KSM seems to have stemmed in part form an unwillingness to admit that torturing Abu Zubaydah was pointless.
And, worse, all kinds of legitimate intelligence work aimed at trying to understand al-Qaeda’s structure were compromised by the fact that some people now had a strong incentive to keep overstating Zubaydah’s significance.
130 Responses to “Torture Still Doesn’t Work”
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April 22nd, 2009 at 10:04 am
not sure where the library comes from
It’s across the street from the public library, so it used to be called the Library Tower.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:06 am
I agree, still doesn’t work.
http://politicsdecoded.com/2009/04/22/tactical-piece-rebuilding-the-gop/
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:11 am
Please see this McClatchy News story by Jonathan Landay that a former U.S. army psychiatrist and intel officer describes the main purpose of 2002-2003 torture was to find (i.e., manufacture) Iraq-Al Qa’ida links so that the administration could have the war that they wanted, by finding the links Chalabi promised them existed.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:16 am
FYI — The main branch of the LA County Library is a very attractive building with a lovely courtyard that is great place to have lunch if you happen to find yourself in downtown LA.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:18 am
El Cid,
So much for torture saving American lives.
It would appear that the information we got from torture led to more American deaths (about 4300 at last count) than 9/11 itself.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:19 am
Isn’t it obvious that torture has nothing to do with intelligence gathering and everything to do with extra-judicial punishment? Torturing Khalid Sheik Mohammed has exactly the same goal as widespread lynching of “uppity” blacks in the post-bellum South: to make sure that a potentially restive population, in this case Muslims in the Middle East and in America, knows who’s boss.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:23 am
Do I even need to remind anyone of the sad case of Al-Libi?
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:26 am
Matthew, what do you make of DNI Blair’s assertion that the torture policies worked?
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/04/dni-blair-sugge.html
Is he just trying to stay on the spooks’ good sides?
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:28 am
Actually, it’s even more interesting than that!
Owning property downtown also involves owning the airspace above your property, and building heights are (or were) limited unless you can purchase somebody else’s airspace. So in order to raise the funds ($30 million, I think) for the massive renovation on the library, the city sold the air space on that plot of land to the owners of the lot across the street, thus enabling the construction of Library Tower, Los Angeles’ tallest building.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 am
I agree with El Cid that McClatchy story is very important.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:32 am
Patrick,
Blair said:
I’m not sure “the torture policies worked” is a reasonably interpretation of Blair’s position.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:40 am
Patrick:
Three months ago, under oath before the Senate, Blair also said:
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
“You can’t prove a negative” is a negative. Just sayin’.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:51 am
Thanks for the responses!
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:57 am
Here is my question: do torture advocates believe it is acceptable for the enemy to torture Americans for the same reasons? (Intelligence gathering, foiling plots).
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:04 am
Raoul,
If you asked them in public they would probably say it isn’t acceptable for our enemies to torture Americans. But I think the truth is that they view the world as a fundamentally lawless place, a place where only might makes right, and thus the extent to which it is wrong for our enemies to torture Americans is really just the extent to which we can punish them for doing so.
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:27 am
When the best you can say about your policies is that sometimes at incredible cost they were able to provide information we could probably have gotten more cheaply…that’s pretty sad.
Not to mention, this fantastically useful torture didn’t get Osama bin Laden captured, didn’t lead us to realize that there were no WMDs in Iraq, and didn’t reveal terror attacks on our closest allies in London and Spain. But we’re supposed to believe the crack Bush torture squad, rather than luck, kept another attack from happening in the US? Seriously?
Honestly, this is like arguing slave labor is awesome because it built they pyramids. Never mind that whole “10 plagues, death of your firstborn” stuff. And, uh, that a modern non-slave economy builds much more awesome stuff.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:28 pm
I think the fact that they had to waterboard KSM 183 times is proof alone that it didn’t work. Are the torturers arguing that he provided a bit of intel each time they waterboarded him, or was it a cumulative process to break him down to give up info after the 183rd time? Or did he break down after, say, the 100th time and the other 83 times were for kicks?
Presumably, if waterboarding was effective he would have provided intel after the 1st time, as they have previously claimed.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
There is actually one way that torture can work. It happened with the Khmer Rouge. The KR weren’t interested in getting tactical information, they really only wanted to get confessions. First, they would get someone to admit that they opposed the KR. Then, they would get the person to give up the name of someone else who opposed the KR. Then they would kill the person and apprehend the next one. In the early years, roughly a third of the country opposed the KR, so they were getting information that was reliable about a third of the time. By the end of their rule, everyone outside of the KR opposed the KR, along with most KR members as well. So, at the end of KR rule, torture was actually 100% effective. But it was effective only as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The methods angered the population enough that everyone really was their enemy. The problem, of course, is that the methods created enemies that otherwise wouldn’t exist.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Why not try an experiment to see if aggressive interrogation works? It would be very easy to determine this. Simply give a piece of different confidential information to a hundred volunteers (say, each is given the name of a certain collaborator), and then have each interrogated according to CIA techniques (waterboarding, etc.). Then see how many of the volunteers end up giving up the confidential information.
Since Matt is so sure that this wouldn’t work, perhaps he’d volunteer for the study.
It’s common sense that skillful, aggressive interrogations work. These interrogations usually involve the implicit threat of force, and the occasional use of force (whether this should be called “torture” is arguable). That’s what the police in Matt’s hometown have done for years, and the New Yorkers who drool over the release of Bush-era memos have no similar zeal to go after the NYPD.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Fred, like many conservatives, you have very little understanding of experimental methods. You forgot the control group: how many people would give up the information without torture?
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Tyro,
There’s no need for a control group in this case, because of the extravagance of Matt’s claim. He didn’t claim that aggressive interrogations (which he blanket-labels “torture”) don’t work as well as alternative methods, he simply claimed that torture didn’t work.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Re: That’s what the police in Matt’s hometown have done for years, and the New Yorkers who drool over the release of Bush-era memos have no similar zeal to go after the NYPD.
Actually, Fred, most of the hipster crowd doesn’t much care for the police, either. Can’t get invited to many lower Manhattan cocktail parties if you defend harsh interrogation techniques. Better to join the “Free Mumia” crowd.
Swift, sure, and stern punishment of malefactors, including capital and corporal punishment, are not Stuff White People Like.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Whether information derived from torture (or the quaint “enhanced techniques”) I think depends on the nature of the information sought. Confessions derived from torture are unreliable because a person in the end will say anything to make the pain stop including falsely incriminating themselves. I’m much more likely to believe that torture could produce information that would prevent an attack because it is the holding back of that information that continues the pain. Could the tortured person give false information. Of course (assuming he is still in control of himself) but when the info is checked out and proved false the pain begins again. The arguments against torture rest on two issues: “do they work” (if not: end of discussion) and “is it right even if it does work”. On the former, maybe Dick Cheney is right and more memos need to be declassified to show the effectiveness (or not) of these “enhanced techniques” (which may or may not work), then move on to the second question which to me is more important. But on that let me leave a question. A lone bank robber has a gun trained on a hostage but a SWAT team sniper has a clear shot: is he justified in taking the shot? If a terrorist attack is imminent (the “ticking time bomb”) and a captured suspect has information that could prevent loss of life is the interrogator justified in using “enhanced techniques”? Personally I’d rather be waterboarded than shot…..
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
It isn’t just the “Bushies” or “torture apologists” who recognize that EITs often produce useful intelligence; the NYT reports that the current intelligence director Adm Dennis Blair wrote in a memo last week, “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country”. Let’s let the IC determine what’s effective, and not the blogosphere. A more honest debate would start from the premise that “torture” is indeed a useful tool for intel purposes, but would legitimately ask whether or not such techniques should ever be used, in spite of their proven effectiveness.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Fred, not only that, but it would have to randomize the exercise. Give the interrogators a random set of information they need to get from the subjects. Or, heck, give the subjects different pieces of information. Then, yeah, you’ll see how torture doesn’t work, as well as being unnecessary.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Actually, like it or not, moral or not, torture does work.
The U.S. Military warns servicemen that if they are captured and facing torture, sooner or later they will talk–everyone does. The best one can do is hold out as long as possible.
If torture doesn’t work, why train soldiers in that fashion?
Torture has always worked. That’s why it has always been used.
Don’t try to advance a moral objection with patently false claims.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
sooner or later they will talk-everyone does.
Talk about what, is the question?
I’m really not a fan of being tortured. Even though I don’t want to say I’m a scum-sucking pig and murderous dog, I’m pretty sure I’d “talk” after a few torture sessions, if that’s what you want me to say. So I’m sure torture would “work” in some sense. But if you want to find out the latest US plans for attack in Iraq, torturing me is probably a bad idea and would probably hurt your cause, since I’m sure I’d tell you some crazy stuff after a week of sleep deprivation and 160 waterboarding sessions.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
We’ve been torturing the enemy since the dawn of the Republic. If we play by the rules as if they matter to the enemy – the enemy will win – we might as well surrender now – in fact we have, we elected Obama. You obama people out there remember I said the following: If you think Bush was bad (I don’t) the next fellow is going to send all of you over the edge.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Fred, the problem with your experiment is that it doesn’t impose negative consequences if the test subject gives up the information. In the real world, giving up real information will get your fellow soldiers or terrorists killed. So your experiment means nothing. So let’s change the experiment a little to make it more realistic. If a test subject gives up the information, kill his family. Now how many test subjects will give up the information? I’m guessing very few. Obviously, nobody will sign up for this experiment. And this is why we can’t really do controlled experiments on torture.
But we do have a lot of historical data on real torture programs. There’s data on about a half million torture victims in Cambodia. The Cambodian government has gone through it and concluded that it was basically useless. The information they got was the information that was predetermined. They wanted the answer “I’m an enemy of the Khmer Rouge.” And they got that answer 100% of the time, whether it was true or not. Eventually, the answer was always true because everyone really was their enemy. But what about the names of fellow travelers? Equally useless. Everyone always gave up a name, but it was the name of someone they didn’t like. It was usually a neighbor with whom they had a property dispute. Now, in the beginning, there was still a 30% chance that the named person really was an enemy of the KR, but only because 30% of the population were enemies. And that number rose as the KR became less popular.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
What are you talking about? Does the name Oscar Louima ring a bell? Haitian guy, tortured by the NYPD, bunch of cops lost their job, huge cause celebre among New Yorkers.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm
we might as well surrender now – in fact we have, we elected Obama.
From what I remember from listening to the right wingers, we were surrendering by giving Pelosi and Reid control of congress in 2006. But then it turned out we didnt really surrender until we elected Obama. But I suspect that we still haven’t “surrendered,” but, man, if we re-elect Obama, then I’m telling you, America will be surrendering to the terrorists! Really, this time!
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Rachelle Young,
There is an excellent answer to your question here.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Pfft. It’s like being threatened by the Mayor of Munchkinland.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I wish everyone would stop debating whether or not torture is an effective intelligence gathering mechanism–of course it is, in very narrow circumstances. It is an ugly aspect of war that no one in the DOD, CIA, DOJ or Whitehouse relishes, but we shouldn’t handicap ourselves. Rather, would should continue to exercise great caution when utilizing EITs, but let’s not take any option of the table just yet–remember Lefties, we are still very much at war and there are a lot of people out there who seek to do us harm.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Hunter (heh),
Firing randomly into the woods might result in hitting a deer. That doesn’t make it an effective hunting practice.
Our intelligence agencies and military leadership have been telling us for years that the torture that took place at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo served as the most effective recruitment tool at our enemies’s disposal. It is precisely because we are still very much at war that we should avoid practices that aid our enemies.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:39 pm
“of course it is, in very narrow circumstances”
Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what those circumstances are? Simply asserting that such circumstances exist isn’t going to convince anyone.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
What methods do geniuses suggest we use if we need to get information from captured terrorists? Or do we just give up now?
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Rachelle Young, in addition to joe from Lowell’s link, the core practical issue with torture isn’t that you can’t get information out of someone, it’s the difficultly in knowing when the information stops and the jesus-i’ll-say-anything-just-stop BS begins, particularly if the BS fits the interrogator’s presuppositions.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:56 pm
To Foster: How about when interrogating high-value detainees? What about the cliched but nevertheless potentially possible ticking timebomb scenario? Or perhaps we should just defer to former CIA Director Michael Hayden or current DNI Dennis Blair who both agree that important information was obtained through the use of IETs.
I’m not advocating the use of such techniques in all or even many circumstances, but this is not game–if the CIA has reason to think x detainee knows something important and he isn’t willing to give it up during normal interrogation procedures, I’m willing to deprive him of sleep or slap him around a bit in an attempt to gain valuable intelligence.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
What methods do geniuses suggest we use if we need to get information from captured terrorists?
I’d advocate for the ones used on captured Nazis by the British and Americans, rather the ones used on captured Americans soldiers by the North Vietnamese.
I’m willing to deprive him of sleep or slap him around a bit in an attempt to gain valuable intelligence.
If anything important, like a ticking time bomb, results from it, feel free to petition for a pardon from your jail cell. Also, don’t expect to get your old job back, since you obviously weren’t good at it.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
I can’t help but notice that no one is really addressing what the ‘torture’ was (other than the waterboarding). Is that because waterboarding was the worst form of torture used? And that measures were in place to ensure the well-being of the man made disasters? And/or that waterboarding is used on some of our own military personal as training? Or that the memos released blacked out the information obtained by the ‘torture’.
JM says:
“Three months ago, under oath before the Senate, Blair also said:
“I believe strongly that torture is not moral, legal or effective.””
However, JM forgot to include that he also said 3 months ago:
“I’ll have to look into that more closely before I can give you a good answer on that one,” Admiral Blair answered.
Perhaps he had a chance to look more closely since then, eh?
I cannot help but think some fraternity out there is laughing their heads off because they’ve done worse to their freshman initiates.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
How would people die in a California hi-jacking if the airliner’s cockpit door is locked?
Interrogating a POW gets never gets valuable information because he only knows what he knew before capture. That info is useless. That’s why POW’s are seldom interrogated.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
1. We don’t know precisely what information was gathered as a result of using harsh interrogation methods–torture to all those who seek to remove themselves from the context under which it took place. Only when the current Administration releases all the memos detailing what we learned, not only about specific plots but about al Queda itself, can we judge the effectiveness of the methods.
However, as one example of how harsh methods might work and be necessary in some instances, when Israel a few years ago learned of a bomb planted on a truck that was successfully brought over from the West Bank it was able to use intelligence from an informer to identify the driver who was supposed to leave it in an unknown populated area. When the driver was captured in Israel he very quickly revealed where the truck had been left. Does anyone think he did so voluntarily? In such circumstances I would hope that Obama, or any US president, would approve the use of any methods necessary to get the information that would save innocent lives.
2. We are almost daily directing remotely guided missles carried on drones to attack who we claim are terrorist leaders. These are civilians who we have shown no evidence linking them to specific crimes against the USA yet we are killing them before they are charged with anything, and very often killing some of their family members and other bystanders. How can this be morally justified by those tearing their hair out over the use of harsh interrogation methods on a few of the most senior al Queda members captured so far?
3. While false information can be given by those subjected to harsh interrogations, actionable intelligence can usually be tested to show in a relatively short period of time whether the information provided was truthful and accurate.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:08 pm
The same non-tortuous interrogation methods used against Saddam Hussein and mafia dons.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:10 pm
current DNI Dennis Blair who both agree that important information was obtained through the use of IETs.
You mean this Dennis Blair?
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
“President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.”
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30335592/
Is is still the “Bushies” making this claim? Check and mate. Use empirical, objective evidence, libs.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
“What methods do geniuses suggest we use if we need to get information from captured terrorists?”
How about the methods the FBI and the US Customs use? They work well. I know, I’ve been interrogated by Australia’s and New Zealand’s Customs services on suspicion of international drug trafficking. It’s quite the experience. I was amazed at how quickly they caught any inconsistencies. I was trying my best to tell the truth about everything, but I was so nervous and disoriented, that I’d sometimes screw up. And when I did, they caught it immediately. After telling my story a dozen or so times, they knew exactly what the truth was. It took me a few more weeks to learn what the truth was. It turns out that the baggage handlers had used my luggage to transport methamphetamine without my knowledge. I learned it from the news when the Australian and New Zealand authorities busted the smuggling ring. And the information I provided helped to narrow down the suspects even though I had no knowledge of the operation. Had they used torture on me instead, I’d be rotting in an Australian jail and the real smugglers would still be in operation.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
“The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”
I would like to see substantiation of this claim, compared to actual information gathered that has – clearly – prevented any attack on American soil for 8 years.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Mase,
You mean this Dennis Blair?
Check and mate. Use evidence that doesn’t refute your point.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:16 pm
All of a sudden, Admiral Dennis Blair’s word isn’t good enough for you?
That’s funny – YOU held him out as the definitive authority.
I believe the term is “Check and mate.”
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Like Mase said, “Check and mate”.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
compared to actual information gathered that has – clearly – prevented any attack on American soil for 8 years.
Putting the word “clearly” in the middle of sentence – even between dashes! – doesn’t make it true.
We went even longer without an attack on American soil after the 1993 WTC bombing, and we didn’t use torture then.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Yes, check and mate.
Gotcha.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I wonder how much time the NVA spent trying to figure out the sortie schedule of the Green Bay Packer’s offensive line?
But they sure did get John McCain to confess it! Hoo boy, check and mate!
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Tortue does work despite what we want to think. We were able to foil 11 terrorist attacks with the interrogation techniques.
I would think people should be able to recognize that with the fact we hadn’t had an attack in the longest of time.
If you look at the other countries, they’re still having problems with terrorists. Or did we forget about what happened in India with the 2008 Mumbai Attacks? Or maybe the train bombings in Britain? Sure, different terrorist groups did those, but still they did it.
Or do we need another actual attack happen on us to see what we’re really up against? 9/11 convinced me more than enough on that point.
If I had to choose either the life of one terrorist group member or the lives of my fellow Americans. I would choose the latter. Then again, I’m an American. I’m sure the other guys in the terrorist group would pick the former.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Well, apparently this got linked in some torture-loving echochamber.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Matthew’s statement that “torture is not an effective intelligence gathering mechanism” is incorrect, but that’s not the problem. Allow me to put in my two cents, based on my own research and experience as an Army veteran trained in interrogation: yes, torture works. There are problems, of course. Torture mostly produces false leads, each of which have to be tested; it produces a risk of reciprocal and escalated treatment by the other side; and it is generally viewed as antithetical to democratic ideals. All of these are valid criticisms. But the question of whether torture produces results can be answered ‘yes’.
None of this, however, addresses the point I want to raise, which is that torture, though tactically effective, is strategically so damaging that it should always be counted on to cancel any benefit gained.
The best popular illustration of what I mean is the 1966 film, “The Battle of Algiers.” This is a brutally accurate telling of historical events in 1957 colonial Algeria. It follows the French authorities in the capital of Algiers as they fight a widening terrorist insurgency headed by the National Liberation Front (FLN). As the French authorities combat the FLN, they increasingly depend on and encourage torture as an expedient means of intelligence gathering against an invisible foe. This is justified with utilitarian, cost-benefit arguments strikingly similar to, say, those of Stephen Hayes writing recently in the Weekly Standard: that “coercive techniques” are legitimized by the extraordinary circumstances and produce real, “actionable intelligence” that saves lives. While it is true that torture can produce life-saving data, it is also strategically counterproductive. In Algiers, its sheer brutality alienated the Muslim Algerian community, with the result that a largely passive public was driven into the arms of the extremists, swelling the FLN’s ranks and its popular support. At the same time, public opinion in France plummeted, weakening political support for the war and creating lasting fissures in French society. In the end, the army “won” in the sense that it achieved it’s tactical goal of defeating the FLN. However, this win was bought at the cost of a greater defeat; five years later, France would be forced from Algeria in the wake of its own fracturing civil society. This is the result whenever democracies employ torture (or just as importantly, what is perceived to be torture).
In sum, torture works, but its ultimate cost far outweighs any short-term profit. This remains true even – perhaps especially – if the gain is counted in lives.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Re: What methods do geniuses suggest we use if we need to get information from captured terrorists? Or do we just give up now?
I’d suggest giving up. Why bother. Then, after the West and Islam have destroyed each other, then Russia and Bolivia can inherit the earth.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Nowinabluestate is right. What indeed do you utopians propose?
How do you folks want to protect this country? Should we just subject the captured combatants to folksy flowery lovely Joanie Mitchell records? (On the other hand that might just work). Former Democrat Zell Miller asked his ex-party faithful if they wanted to fight the War on Terror (oops can’t use that term anymore either) with spitballs. Zell Miller was right. There seems to be little desire on the part of the American Left to first name any enemy (other than America herself) and then to stand up to that enemy in any way. The desire seems to be to hold dialog and communication with these misunderstood malcontents who have only one desire and that’s to KILL AMERICANS.
It is hard to negotiate with a person who wants you dead. What do you say? Can we talk about this? How about you just maim me a little? Can I give you my left hand and we call it good?
Just exactly what conflict is worth standing up and fighting about? Rowanda. Nah. Darfour? Nah. Somali pirates (err … seafaring community organizers)? Yes. Apparently yes on that one at least in one case. Didn’t President Obama just create the single biggest recruitment opportunity for the Somali seafaring community organizer groups; a.k.a. pirates?
Can you Left minded intellectuals please define the term “torture.” Is there one unambiguous definition? The problem is that intelligent people will disagree with what constitutes torture. Is waterboarding torture? It was not at the time it was used; not by the standards at the time.
Should torture be defined as anything that makes one uncomfortable? We wouldn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable would we; especially if our esteemed opponents (can’t call them enemies) are trying any and all means to kill us … all of us.
Were the methods used by the previous administration effective? It would seem so given we were not attacked again after 9/11. What methods would you use to get information from someone who just planted a bomb or nuclear bomb? What methods then might be necessary to save millions of lives?
Face it, they are at war with us whether we want to admit it or not. Moreover, they will NOT stop until we are all dead, converted, or they are all defeated. We will have to fight or we will have to acquiesce or die. Sleep tight!
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:50 pm
“Rachelle Young, in addition to joe from Lowell’s link, the core practical issue with torture isn’t that you can’t get information out of someone, it’s the difficultly in knowing when the information stops and the jesus-i’ll-say-anything-just-stop BS begins, particularly if the BS fits the interrogator’s presuppositions. ”
That issue applies with any HUMINT tactic though. People will say anything to avoid being blackmailed, people will say anything to be awarded large sums of money, people will say anything to get assylum out of the hellhole in which they live. ALL forms of HUMINT are vulnerable to this criticism, that people will say anything in order to not experience a negative consequence or in order to experience a positive one; the difference between torture and any other option with respect to this criticism is only one of degree, not kind.
The most basic “solution”, for all HUMINT, is to use multiple mutually blind sources (i.e. get the same story from multiple people who do not know about each other and most especially that the other is also giving information). The statistical odds that blind sources will lie in the same manner is low, and grows exponentially lower the more sources you have in the mix. Likewise, we can improve upon all HUMINT by going double blind (i.e. the interrogator does not know the “correct” answers and is given random phrasing of questions to ask).
In this manner torture “works”; it produces a large amount of true “signal”, but at the expense of lower “signal to noise” (S/N). This is why militaries the world over train their fighting forces to resist torture, but assume that they will eventually crack. The goal is not to prevent an individual to compromise information, but to make the time and S/N ratio not worth the effort. For multiple sources S/N improves with the square root of the sources, ceteris parabis.
Now just to get a few points out there:
1. Torture is of no virtually no utility due to blowback, whatever gains you make on the tactical intelligence level are lost on the strategic.
2. The CIA wasn’t torturing people. I’ve been waterboarded by Uncle Sam, its freakish, but not torture. I have also experienced techniques, not used on any detainee according to any report I have read, which are torture and think I know the difference from experience.
3. It was still a dumbass policy as this is a popular support “war” and anything that looks remotely like torture is going to bite you in the ass. The goal is to cut off support for these murderous bastards, and torture for tactical purposes is worse than futile in the long run.
4. Even ignoring blowback it was stupid as the only way to effectively generate good intelligence would have required a far more systematic and widespread use to account for lying and distortion.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:50 pm
To the author: Little boys who know nothing should keep quiet and not advertise their ignorance. Most servicemen and women who underwent advanced military training were subjected to far more than what you wail about. Typical lib …. all talk … no action. Wants “someone” to protect his rights … but doesn’t have the guts to do it himself … just complain about those who do it for him. What a weenie!
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:52 pm
“I would think people should be able to recognize that with the fact we hadn’t had an attack in the longest of time.”
It’s hardly the longest of times. Granted, we need to go all the way back to the Clinton administration to find a longer period of time without a foreign terrorist attack. That’s obviously farther back than your memory can reach. But how about that period between Word War II and the World Trade Center bombing? That’s an even longer period of time.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:57 pm
This question has been answered several times since it was first asked. I guess you must have missed that part.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
The buk-buk-buking from the chickenhawks is deafening.
Ooh, look at me, I’m much more manly than you because of what other people I’ve never met do!
Go wash the cheetos off your fourth chin.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:00 pm
The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”
Um, what techniques were used during the Clinton years to bring on the first attack on the WTC and other attacks as well as 9/11.
Check and Mate
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
THAT’S supposed to be “check and mate?”
That you don’t understand such complicated concepts as “worsen,” “exacerbate,” and “expand” means “check and mate?”
That’s just pathetic.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
first name any enemy….have only one desire and that’s to KILL AMERICANS….person who wants you dead….trying any and all means to kill us … all of us….just planted a bomb or nuclear bomb….save millions of lives….they will NOT stop until we are all dead, converted, or they are all defeated….we will have to acquiesce or die
Christ, will someone change Nowhereman’s diaper already? John Connor wasn’t as apocalyptic!
It would seem so given we were not attacked again after 9/11.
Little do you know the real reason is because of the Magic Rock of Speciousness I possess that acts to ward off terrorists, zombies, and bears. The next time you spineless bedwetters can show any evidence we “weren’t attacked after 9/11″ (*cough* anthrax *cough*) thanks to torture and not my magic rock, will be the first time.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:05 pm
BTW, the answer to your question is “Why don’t you ask Admiral Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, since that’s his statement?”
I suppose your long years spent infiltrating the ferocious Cheetos People of Momsbasementistan has given you insights into foreign relations and global security that a mere US Navy admiral and intelligence chief couldn’t possibly understand.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
cyrano, good post.
I especially liked your observation that “the difference between torture and [other HUMINT] is only one of degree, not kind.” Very true. I disagree with you, however, about whether waterboarding is torture and for similar reasons. You would have been boarded a couple of times to provide an illustration of the experience, so you’d know what to expect if it happened. We’re now getting reports that our prisoners have been near-drowned hundreds of times. There is indeed a difference of degree. And in any case, the simple fact that you volunteered to be there, and trusted the facilitator not to go too far, is profoundly different from the experience of someone captured on the battlefield.
Where did you train?
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:07 pm
It is good to have a public listing of torture-loving moral degenerates. Every one of you here is a worm. You are not cold-eyed realists; you’re sadistic, vile, and evil.
It’s quite obvious that having your opponent torture people motivates recruitment. The “harsh” tactics of the Gestapo didn’t stop the Resistance – they fueled it. TSimilarly, treating captives well creates good will – and was a major factor helping us with, say, Nazis.
A lot of this online stuff is tribal – people on the left and right lining up to cheer their sports team. Folks, you aren’t arguing about tax cuts. You’re advocating torture.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:14 pm
“How about when interrogating high-value detainees?”
You mean like Saddam Hussein? He wasn’t tortured, but we got useful information out of him. The problem with torture is that it produces information that will always be less accurate. But if a person is high value, we will place more value on less reliable information. So we’ll spend more time following bad leads.
“What about the cliched but nevertheless potentially possible ticking timebomb scenario?”
Let’s leave aside that there is no evidence that the scenario has ever happened, and just assume that it will happen all the time. It’s still a bad method. And it comes back to the problem that the information is less reliable. In the ticking timebomb scenario, the last thing you want to do is waste time following up on a bad lead. Since torture will produce more bad leads, you are only making it more likely that you won’t find the bomb in time. You’ll be looking in the Holland Tunnel for a bomb that’s actually in the Midtown Tunnel. And guess what? You won’t find it.
The real question is this: Do we want more information that’s less reliable, or less information that’s more reliable?
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Marc Says:
-
“It is good to have a public listing of torture-loving moral degenerates. Every one of you here is a worm. You are not cold-eyed realists; you’re sadistic, vile, and evil.”
-
Nice job. Nice ad homonym attack. Well done. You can insult with the best of them. What’s wrong? Can’t come up with a valid point to make?
I’m rubber, your glue….
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
The only conceivable reason for permitting torture would be when facing an existential threat to the country itself (We’re talking Cold War stuff, entire nuclear arsenals, etc.) Nothing the last administration faced was anywhere near that. “We were all scared” is not an excuse. Indeed, it appears we were doing what the terrorists wanted us to do. Because of one attack 8 years ago, we are now debating whether or not the liberties this country was founded on really matter so much anymore. This savagery with which the intelligence community has conducted itself over the last 8 years must be reversed as swiftly as possible, there may be no going back even now, because a good portion of the country is convinced that “torture works”. We can be strong and defend our country without sacrificing our values. Torture is the cowardly way out.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
What about the cliched but nevertheless potentially possible ticking timebomb scenario?
If you’re right about the ticking time bomb, and the torture works, it’s unlikely that a jury would convict, and if it does, the torturer would have a good case for getting a presidential pardon.
If the torturer is wrong and/or the torture doesn’t work, I’m sure that serving a 25 year sentence can be seen as making a patriotic sacrifice for one’s country.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Luke: please take care when making judgments about entire, heterogeneous groups such as “the intelligence community”. While I agree with you that some interrogators in some CIA sections probably went too far, that concerns only a tiny fraction of the intel community. In fact, many intel people were pissed off at the way their work was being treated by the administration, which was clearly digging for evidence to support a decision already made. (For the record, I was a DoD Middle East analyst from 1997 to 2005.)
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Nice ad homonym attack
Apparently, “illiterate” needs to be added to “sadistic, vile and evil”
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Michael Bessette:
Quantico MCB; Brunswick NAS; etc.
My working definition of torture is:
Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a male or female person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.
I have experienced both freakish interrogation techniques and those which involve “severe pain or suffering”. It diminishes the latter to conflate them with the former. Also you think I trusted them not to go too far? Why in hell would you think that? The gentlemen doing that training are SOBs who are very good at making sure such thoughts never enter your mind while they are dicking with you. Simulated drowning is freakish and may even lead to some suffering, but my own experience says it does not cross the severe threshold. Having experienced both severe pain and suffering and this stuff, they are not equivalent. Maybe we need a bit more nuance so things like waterboarding and good cop/bad cop are not at the same level. But getting wired with electrodes and the like is a whole other degree from waterboarding.
For all you guys blathering about ticking timebombs:
Get real. If we have them, then we should have standardized procedures worked out, in advance, to delineate when such a scenario actually exists, who makes the call – and it had damn well better be way above my paygrade, and how to get the most effective information out. Ideas that you are going to have low level officers (civil or military) come up with all of this on the fly with no SOPs or regs is fantasy.
Either have the balls to say never sanctioning torture merits the remote chance that a nuke goes off because of it or have the balls to buck up with when Congress and the POTUS should allow torture. Kicking the can down the road is the worst of both worlds – it is more likely to get “rogue” actors torturing in assbackwards fashion as idiots will be more likely to misjudge ticking timebomb scenarios and be sadistic when they make the call that “they will thank me later” and that people who would do what is right and follow the rules have none to say when and how they are doing. This nebulous “go Lone Ranger when you see it” is a Charlie Foxtrot waiting to happen. This “it could never happen” is also stupid, there are conceivable scenarios out there – you can say they are remote enough not to warrant their use, but be honest that you are saying the risk of a million dead is low enough to warrant not ever allowing torture. Now putting such regs down on paper and dropping them into some TS/SCI hole until needed is fine, but these things should be done.
Expecting the politicians to man up and actually take responsibility instead of kicking it downward? What in hell am I thinking.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Excuse me…
That’s
… and you know what I meant. You sure like to spew vitriol and slander.
… and you folks just did it again with another personal attack. I would not consider a typo a sign of illiteracy. I would consider your comments exceedingly dull and reprehensible … yet quite typical. Condescension and personal (ad hominem) attacks are all you folks seem to enjoy.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:50 pm
you libs are funny. i hope the next time someone decides not to inflict sleep deprevation, bugs, fake walls and waterboarding on a terrorist and the terrorist murders…i hope it’s you and your ilk.
think progress my ass.
that name is almost as funny as the american prospect’s “liberal intelligence” moniker.
poof.
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
So, Mr. Yglesias, your blanket assertion that “torture is never effective”, is based on what? Your vast personal experience in military intelligence?? I am a retired 30 year Army intelligence officer and I can tell you that “torture” (to me, waterboarding, cold and sleep deprivation and loud music does not equal torture)does work sometimes. It depends on the inner strength and convictions of the suspect. Everyone does have a breaking point. Further, if this “torture” is used, there is a psycological edge gained on future suspects. I do believe that President Bush was correct in in only allowing waterboarding as a last resort, never to be used by military intelligence, and with the approval level being that of the President. Finally, there are certain situations, primarily time-sensitive/mass casualties situations, that need to use harsh interrogation measures immediately. Much of the “civil liberties” propaganda spread by liberals and their useful idiots in the mainstream media, seek to lower America’s active defenses when we need them the most. The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, a “liberal’s liberal”, writing an opinion considering the “trade-off” between civil liberties (broadly defined) and aggressive intelligence gathering during the Cold War, said, “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.”
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Here’s a headline for Mr. Yglesias: “President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, told colleagues in an internal memo last week that the aggressive interrogation tactics approved by the Bush administration yielded “high-value information” which helped the U.S. in the war on terror”. We don’t have to listen to unreliable sources who don’t know what they are talking about like Mr. Yglesias we can go directly to Obama’s top expert and Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair. You can consider water boarding or putting a murdering terrorist in a box with a “CATERPILLAR” torture if you like, I don’t, but if you want to claim it didn’t work you don’t need to argue with Pres Bush or VP Cheney, you need to go fight with Obama’s expert and Director of National Intelligence. Not that I think you won’t be happy to do so….the blame America First crowd that thinks the U.S. is an evil country will never face facts, regardless of where they come from!
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:45 pm
so going outside to check the weather doesnt work because you could just as easily check it on the internet?
a. that doesnt make sense
b. so then what happens if you dont have the internet?
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Michael: Good point. My bad. This scandal involves only a select few, and even some who could be good people under tremendous pressure.
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Of course “torture” has potential efficacy, but as the wise Philip Zelikow has written, one of his biggest problems with the memos was that “the OLC must argue, in effect, that the methods and the conditions of confinement in the CIA program could constitutionally be inflicted on American citizens in a county jail.”
In other words, “Americans in any town of this country,” he concludes, “could constitutionally be hung from the ceiling naked, sleep deprived, water-boarded, and all the rest — if the alleged national security justification was compelling.”
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:34 pm
It’s funny how the people arguing that they favor torture for pragmatic reasons or because they have a better understanding of it just can’t help but launch into partisan diatribes.
“The blame America first crowd?” “Liberals and their useful idiots in the mainstream media?”
Yeah, whatever, Rush.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Tom: Zelikow’s assertion is a classic argumentum ad absurdem.
There is a clear line seperating what can and should be done to enemy combatants and soldiers engaged actively against the U.S. and domestic civil liberties. This type of over-reach is designed to weaken support for effective intelligence gathering by the U.S. Only recently have U.S. courts attempted to invest enemy combatants and soldiers with the rights of American citizens. “A hell of a way to fight a war”.
Should there be rules for the treatment of captured enemy combatants and soldiers? Of course. This is not dimished by the blatant disregard of civilized rules applied against our soldiers and civilians by our enemies. The President and the Executive Branch have strong powers granted to prosecute war on behalf of the country. These powers, overseen by the Congress, require a President to do what is neccesary to protect our country.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Wow, great big debate about the efficacy of torture and nary a mention that it’s a war crime under U.S. federal law.
Also, when torture becomes an acceptable policy, it always gets abused. Innocent people will be tortured – probably many more innocent ones than guilty ones – many of them to death. In fact that’s already happened.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:46 pm
There is a clear line seperating what can and should be done to enemy combatants and soldiers engaged actively against the U.S. and domestic civil liberties.
No there isn’t.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:50 pm
These powers, overseen by the Congress, require a President to do what is neccesary to protect our country.
Including anything illegal, apparently.
Notice that’s the logic that got us into Iraq. How fucking gullible are you anyway. Anything Mr. War Powers wants to become a vital national security issue is suddenly a vital national security issue, which authorizes The Commander In Chief to break the law whenever he sees fit.
Why would anyone be so desperate to defend a system like that? Fuck off.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I do believe that President Bush was correct in in only allowing waterboarding as a last resort,
Yeah, it was such a last resort they needed to do it hundreds of times. Leaving people naked chained to the floor wallowing in their own feces for days on end, however, was more like a first resort. Face it, you’re an apologist for stupidity, criminality and sadism.
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:38 pm
So, Mr. Yglesias, your blanket assertion that “torture is never effective”, is based on what? Your vast personal experience in military intelligence?? I am a retired 30 year Army intelligence officer and I can tell you that “torture” (to me, waterboarding, cold and sleep deprivation and loud music does not equal torture)does work sometimes.
Um, Mr. Army man, neither Yglesias nor anybody else is claiming that an act of torture can never produce a factually accurate piece of intelligence. His claim is that “a policy of legalized torture is not an effective intelligence gathering mechanism.” Do you have cost-benefit analysis that would disprove him? We’re all waiting eagerly…
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Hey Bill. The memos recently released by the CIA and as ordered by BHO indicate 3 instances of waterboarding. And Jasper, you also have no cost-benefit analysis that proves torture doesn’t work. So while you wait for that analysis, I’d prefer my family be kept safe. BTW, Cheney has again asked that the all the memos be released uncensored. Only the methodology is contained in the released version, not the results.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:11 pm
I’m confused.
On the one hand, President Obama categorically rules out the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, including water boarding. Presumably this includes the “ticking time bomb” scenario where a detainee is suspected of having actionable knowledge of an imminent attack that will kill thousands of American civilians.
On the other hand, he has no moral compunction authorizing three fatal “headshots” on three Somali teenagers.
So someone please explain to me the moral calculus which concludes that scaring the bejezus out of a detainee, even when there is a high probability of saving thousands of lives, is categorically immoral, but snuffing out the lives of three black teenagers, when there is a modest probability that it will save the life of one American white guy, is morally permissible. Any takers?
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Yeah, because they kidnapped the guy, held him at gunpoint, and shot at him.
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Five Directors of the CIA disagree with you. I know where I’m putting my money.
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Burntham, I think there’s (to me at least) clear difference between killing armed enemies in combat in order to save a civilian’s life, and deliberately torturing an unarmed individual. Aside from any moral considerations, as a strictly legal matter the first doesn’t violate the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. Constitution, or our international treaty obligations. The second does.
Having said that…the near unanimous hurrahs when the pirates were killed was…well, it was on a continuum with the enthusiasm for torture, sure. Revenge is a powerful motive, and righteous violence has a strong appeal to just about everyone. That’s why it’s important to have clear rules about when violence is acceptable and when it isn’t. Not because we want to be pure and think that we’re going to keep our hands clean, but because we know we aren’t and can’t. The guidelines are in some sense arbitrary, because human beings aren’t perfect, and so our moral codes aren’t going to be perfect either. But we do know that chucking the moral code altogether in the name of expedience or practicality or toughness is a good working definition of evil.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:04 am
Getting soaked with water and being pushed against a false wall with a neck brace being administered to the mastermind of 9/11 does not constitute torture. The CIA and Administration did not go far enough. The breadth was too narrow and the depth of the techniques was too shallow. I am disappointed that this is all they got.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:23 am
Noah. I think you are confusing “scaring the bejezus” out of someone with torture. Somehow you, and others, are equating actions which help induce mental anquish with torture. Waterboarding produces the illusion of drowning without any actual drowning taking place. There is no resultant physical harm. So, is that torture? If so, then any of us can certainly safely say we are tortured frequently by others who treat us mean. Should we then say they should be incarcerated for their actions?
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:21 am
Torture ‘works’ fine, if what you want is false confessions. Big Brother doesn’t want to squeeze _information_ out of his victims; Big Brother wants to squeeze out _disinformation_. The point of torture is not to discover truth, but to impose lies. Its purpose is reality control.
That is why torture has no place within justice, and is central to tyranny.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:34 am
And as for the legendary ticking bomb… torture would be useless in finding a real ticking bomb; the victim need merely scream out a dozen false leads. What torture _would _ be useful for is in _inventing_ a _mythical_ ticking bomb; one suitable for justifying more tyranny, and more torture.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:13 am
Paradoctor:
Paranoia check, Doctor. In general all this debate is a pissing contest over the definition of torture. I oppose carte blanch authority to use harsh methods by interrogators.
But the very first mission of this President is to ensure the safety of American citizens and preserve our Republic. In a war, harsh methods are often necessary (Lincoln:suspends habeus corpus in the North; FDR inters thousands of Japanese-American citizens); the trick is to keep these excesses to a very essential minimum and have strict oversight all the way up to the President. And Jasper: the definition of torture shades your assertions. There was and is no general policy promoting “torture” as a general, accepted form of intelligence collection. The limited use of these harsh interrogation techniques were utilized only against high level operatives with access to actionable intelligence. Presidents are occasionally faced with life or death, real-time decisions affecting the safety of the nation and its citizens. They must protect us. As for wanting to defend a system such as this, look around and imaigne this public debate occuring in Cuba, Iran, China, Russia, or Venezuela. That’s why. The U.S. is not perfect but a better, more free system has not appeared.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:17 am
But the very first mission of this President is to ensure the safety of American citizens and preserve our Republic.
Now that you’ve spent 30 years in the Army, go take a fucking civics class.
In a war, harsh methods are often necessary (Lincoln:suspends habeus corpus in the North; FDR inters thousands of Japanese-American citizens)
Neither was necessary. Both were profoundly wrong. And we’re not talking about an existential conflict like the Civil War or WWII, maybe you need your diaper changed.
The limited use of these harsh interrogation techniques were utilized only against high level operatives with access to actionable intelligence.
False. Listen to what a party line toting stooge you sound like.
Presidents are occasionally faced with life or death, real-time decisions affecting the safety of the nation and its citizens. They must protect us.
Name one relevant case.
As for wanting to defend a system such as this, look around and imaigne this public debate occuring in Cuba, Iran, China, Russia, or Venezuela.
Yeah, and guess who wants to stifle the public debate about it. No thanks to your side we’re having a fucking public debate.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:26 am
Hey Bill. The memos recently released by the CIA and as ordered by BHO indicate 3 instances of waterboarding.
Yes, hundreds of times per. Largely to produce false intel about an Al Qaeda-Iraq link for the war criminal Cheney.
And Jasper, you also have no cost-benefit analysis that proves torture doesn’t work. So while you wait for that analysis, I’d prefer my family be kept safe.
I see so by your logic we really ought to have been torturing people all along. The threat existed before 9/11 after all. Why should we want to keep immoral lawless scum like you safe, though.
BTW, Cheney has again asked that the all the memos be released uncensored. Only the methodology is contained in the released version, not the results.
Not torturing prisoners was supposed to be what separated a civilized free nation like ours from the rest. The same side that insists “WE ARE A CHRISTIAN NATION” leaps to defend torture, because is gets “results.” How revealing. You ought to be ashamed.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:50 am
Noah, while I disagree with you, I appreciate your well reasoned response. I share your aversion to “torture” but, in a fallen world, making moral decisions often consists of choosing the lesser of two evils. Categorically rejecting ANY form of physical or mental coercion can be, at best, an easy way to avoid making difficult decisions and, at worst, an act of moral cowardice.
I agree with some of the other posters that one of the core issues in this debate is the definition of torture. In my 1961 version of Webster’s it is defined as: The infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure. My 1985 American Heritage Dictionary defines it as: The infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
As for torture being against US law, is there a legal definition of “torture” anywhere in the US legal code? If so, can anybody provide this forum with citations from the actual code so we can all speak rationally based on facts?
As for the Geneva Convention, as I understand it, it clearly excludes non-enemy combatants and I understand that the Guantanamo detainees (as well as pirates) are clearly within the class of people expressly excluded from the Geneva Convention. I have not gone to the sources on this one so I could be wrong. Here also it would be helpful if someone would take the time to cut and past the relevant parts of the Geneva Convention so we can continue this discussion based on facts.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:06 am
Bill,
Could you please provide us your definition of torture?
Suppose that you have one of the right wing racist nut cases that Janet Napolitano has warned us about in custody and one Sunday morning he tells you that he has planted a bomb to go off in a black church during that morning’s service, that the church is within 200 mile Chicago, and that it is hidden where you will never find it.
Tell us precisely what your conscience would allow you to do to attempt to get the truth out of him. He might be lying just to get a rise out of you… He might lie about his actual plans and misdirect you… He might… he might… he might… YOU are in charge. YOU are responsible for making the decision and, if he is telling the truth, you have an hour to make it before hundreds of innocents die. What do you do?
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:30 am
Could you please provide us your definition of torture?
I’m fine with the dictionary definition, ‘the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty’; ‘to afflict with severe pain of body or mind’. Waterboarding and extreme sleep deprivation (which, contra all the glib assholes on t.v., I believe is a worse kind of torture than the former) fit this definition easily.
If I answered that now hackneyed thought experiment to your or my own satisfaction, would it magically prevent torture from being used in a host of other inappropriate situations? You want to base an entire systematic policy on a scenario without any precedent outside of t.v. fiction? The notion that we can live in a country that, thanks to torture, will be entirely free from mass homicidal plots by crazy people, is delusional, and such a policy would produce way more blowback than the crimes it hoped to forestall.
So instead of masturbating to exciting time bomb scenarios, why don’t you do a little research on why exactly state sponsored torture has been sensibly outlawed by civilized countries, and look further into the kinds of deeply troubling and evil outcomes it produces, has invariably produced, over the centuries. In spite of the huge sugar fix people like to get from American Exceptionalism, we’re actually not the first fucking country in history to have to deal with terrorism and mass murder. Open warfare might bring us to our knees; terrorism won’t. I don’t want to live in a police state in the name of 100% security. 9/11 could WELL have been prevented without torturing anyone.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:05 am
Bill,
Yes I agree that coercive interrogation is a dangerous road to go down.
As to the “civilized world”, I’m not big on the argument that we should base our moral choices on what others might do, but I am fairly knowledgeable about western Europe. Germany, because of its history, might refrain from using coercive interrogation. On the other hand, I can say with a fair level of confidence that both France and the UK would not (and have not) hesitated to use similar, and/or the same, techniques used at Guantanamo under similar circumstances – and I don’t mean in the deep dark past. As for the rest of the world, off the top of my head I can’t think of any place that might fit your definition of “civilized”. Because others do it doesn’t make it OK for us, I just want to dispel your erroneous belief concerning what the “civilized world” will, and will not do (as opposed to what they will or will not say in public).
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:24 am
I just want to dispel your erroneous belief concerning what the “civilized world” will, and will not do (as opposed to what they will or will not say in public).
If they want to go ahead and break their own laws as well, then that counts against their being civilized. It’s a civilized law, anyway. The United States is a signatory of the UN Convention Against Torture. We are legally obligated to investigate and prosecute Americans under suspicion of torturing people. Violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is a war crime under U.S. federal law. The Geneva Conventions should apply to anyone we pick up on the battlefield, especially when it’s a battlefield of our choosing (Afghanistan, Iraq).
I’m not arguing that our moral choices be based on what others do; I’m suggesting they be based on what’s moral. I don’t care if torture ‘works’ in certain isolated, special circumstances. It’s the ultimate violation of personal liberty, it’s entirely antithetical to the Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment values on which this country and its laws are supposedly based, it’s applied to people who are presumed guilty without due process, it invariably affects the innocent along with the guilty, it galvanizes our enemies and undermines our moral standing, it corrupts the people entrusted with administering it, and it’s fucking illegal and sadistic. We don’t even do it to the worst kinds of serial killers and child rapists in our own prisons (presumably, legally). The people who are so eager to legalize or excuse torturing intel out of “enemy combatants” clearly have no idea what America is about, and don’t really deserve the liberty they claim to cherish.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:25 am
Bill:
I’ve been through both waterboarding and extreme sleep deprivation; neither caused me “excrutiating” or “severe” pain.
The ticking timebomb has happened many times in this world. Terrorists took over a school in Beslan, wired it to blow, and the crazy, suicidal guy inside is a ticking clock until he starts to off children by the dozen. There are innumerable things that HUMINT from another member of the organization that could allow for large numbers of lives to be saved (i.e. what type of explosives are in use – so you can best adopt your counter measures, how many hostiles are inside – so you can ensure rapid take down with no one left to detonate explosives, where are any external observers – so you can blind the terrorists inside and reduce the body count if you have to storm the building). Quite likely, in the long run, torturing some Chechan bastard would be counter productive and result in even more deaths, but at the tactical level you have a time issue (the hostage takers are becoming increasingly erratic due to sleep deprivation among other concerns), the potential for mass casualties, and buckets of information that could save information that high value prisoners might have been able to provide.
Torture will give you more tactical information in this instance. It will give you crap for S/N and you will have to expend massive amounts of resources to get the useful information out of the dross, but it is possibe to get additional useful tactical information for these scenarios.
You are right in that blowback is a far bigger concern, but with the increased availibility of NBCR, the ticking time bomb is a feasible, albeit unlikely, scenario.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:34 am
I’ve been through both waterboarding and extreme sleep deprivation; neither caused me “excrutiating” or “severe” pain.
Nice for you.
[quote]Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a counterterrorism specialist who taught at the Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school in California, likened waterboarding to drowning and said those who experience it will say or do anything to make it stop, rendering the information they give nearly useless.
“In my case, the technique was so fast and professional that I didn’t know what was happening until the water entered my nose and throat,” Nance testified yesterday at a House oversight hearing on torture and enhanced interrogation techniques. “It then pushes down into the trachea and starts the process of respiratory degradation. It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts. As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured.”[/quote]
[quote]SERE attendees expect to be released and assume that their trainers will not permanently harm them. Nance said it is “stress inoculation” meant to let U.S. troops know what to expect if they are captured. “The SERE community was designed over 50 years ago to show that, as a torture instrument, waterboarding is a terrifying, painful and humiliating tool that leaves no physical scars, and which can be repeatedly used as an intimidation tool,” he said.
A detainee, on the other hand, “has no idea what is about to happen to them,” Nance said, and could legitimately fear death. “It’s far worse,” he said.[/quote]
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:36 am
(And were you deprived sleep for 7 straight days?)
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:37 am
Torture will give you more tactical information in this instance. It will give you crap for S/N and you will have to expend massive amounts of resources to get the useful information out of the dross, but it is possibe to get additional useful tactical information for these scenarios.
I somehow fail to see this as an argument for implementing it.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:58 am
Bill:
Alas, I was only sleep deprived for 6 days, I guess I know nothing.
I’m not argueing that torture should be implemented as policy, as I noted in the very post you quote, long term blowback is likely going to outway the benefits. However, torture can be effective at the tactical level. It was used and produced measurable dividends (e.g. the French got superior HUMINT via torture in Algeria); but the long term cost is exceedingly high.
The idea that people will say anything to end torture is no different than the idea that people will lie when presented with any of the normal HUMINT inducements (money, assylum, pardon, etc.); the greater the inducement, the more true information you will get but also the more false positives you will get. At the tactical level, this is just an optimization problem: how much signal do I value vs how much S/N do I value? For most ticking time bomb scenarios the amount of resources you have to weed out false positives and other noise biases the calculation heavily toward valueing raw signal.
So, yes, I agree that in all but the most extreme of scenarios torture should not be implemented as policy (and in the most extreme cases it is above my paygrade). However, it has nothing to do with its potential efficacy at the tactical level. An honest debate gives rise to better policy than BS that ignores the historical uses of torture to gather information. An honest debate would also highlight the actual costs of torture or even have a policy advocating it.
Either symptom of willful denial is going to muck up the chances of getting good policy out.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:20 am
Alas, I was only sleep deprived for 6 days, I guess I know nothing.
Okay, well, see, as I understand it current “policy” allows someone to be deprived for something like 7.5 days, after which they get like a day’s respite before another 7.5 day ordeal commences. This can of course go on indefinitely until the prisoner is “broken.”
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:22 am
I should say, the policy before Obama banned it.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:36 am
@ 105, well the US is a signatory to the UN Convention on Torture, which, being duly ratified by the US Senate, has the force of US law. The first sentence of the convention reads:
“For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:53 am
Bill,
Thank you for a well reasoned response (with only one profanity!).
A couple of points:
First, in a fallen world, our moral choices are often “the lesser of two evils” that we must make based on incomplete, and possibly erroneous, information. Considering hypothetical situations is one way we can test and refine our moral and prudential judgments. It would be morally unserious for me to argue for coercive interrogation based only on real world cases where it has provided life saving information, without considering the very real negatives that you enumerated. By the same token, it is morally unserious of you to refuse to consider the real world implications of a “ticking time bomb’ scenario.
I agree with you that there are “slippery slope” risks associated with engaging in coercive interrogation, but they are not inevitable. You can argue whether Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus or Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese Americans was necessary, effective, or moral; but you can’t argue that it led to the long term abolition of Habeas Corpus or the establishment of post war concentration camps. These policies, as questionable as they may be, did not inevitably lead down a slippery slope. On the other hand, it would be unserious of me to deny the possibility that these actions could have sent us down that slope.
Likewise, it is morally unserious of you to posit a false dichotomy between limited, controlled use of coercive interrogation and the most dire consequences at the end of your slippery slope.
In the recently released government memos there is a claim that Sheik what’s his face told (taunted?) his interrogators that another attack was coming but, using non-coercive interrogation techniques, he would not reveal any actionable intelligence they could use to stop it. – Now a momentary digression: I think it is wise to keep an eye on what the government is telling us, and they may be misrepresenting the facts in this case. On the other hand, I have no specific rational basis to disbelieve that they were acting in good faith based on the circumstances at the knowledge they had at the time. So I’ll stipulate for purposes of this conversation that there is a 60% chance they are telling the truth and a 40% chance that they are lying. – So anyway, if this report is anywhere near true, then this is a real world “ticking time bomb’ scenario, not a jack Bauer TV show. What to do?
My moral calculus would be, given what I currently know about this situation, is that I would have authorized coercive interrogation in this specific instance. And I would do it knowing full well that it could possibly be the first step on a slippery slope, that the Sheik may have been yanking our chain, and that he may have given us false information (he is the one who made the taunt, let him live with the consequences) because I also know that it might save thousands of lives and that, in spite of the risks, sliding down the slippery slope is not inevitable. I can’t know that for certain, I would have to hope that it would remain limited and that it would not send us down the slope. Just as, if you make the opposite choice, you can only hope that you have not condemned thousands of innocents to a fiery death. There are risks of both action and inaction. Risks of believing the government and of disbelieving the government. To pretend that these are easy choices, and that there is a bright line between the right decision and the wrong decision is morally obtuse.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
Thank you for a well reasoned response (with only one profanity!).
Go and be someone else’s nan, I’m uninterested.
By the same token, it is morally unserious of you to refuse to consider the real world implications of a “ticking time bomb’ scenario.
Except that I have considered it and feel it doesn’t come close to justifying torture as a legal policy. It’s woefully open to abuse. How long does the ticking have to be? What if there’s a plot scheduled for a year from now? Is that a ticking time bomb scenario? What if we’re mistaken about the urgency, etc.
I agree with you that there are “slippery slope” risks associated with engaging in coercive interrogation,
Torture.
but they are not inevitable. You can argue whether Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus or Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese Americans was necessary, effective, or moral; but you can’t argue that it led to the long term abolition of Habeas Corpus
Just a fucking minute, Lincoln’s suspension of habeas was explicitly used as justification by stooges like Alberto Gonzales and all the right wing cheerleaders. Not a long term abolition, but apparently a harmful precedent. Let’s contemplate whether any innocent people are now dead because of using Lincoln’s misstep as a legal crutch.
or the establishment of post war concentration camps.
Guantanamo Bay & extralegal ‘black sites’ = concentration camps, as far as I’m concerned.
These policies, as questionable as they may be, did not inevitably lead down a slippery slope.
Maybe not directly, but harmful precedents are harmful precedents and always come back to bite you in the ass.
Likewise, it is morally unserious of you to posit a false dichotomy between limited, controlled use of coercive interrogation and the most dire consequences at the end of your slippery slope.
It’s torture, and it’s clearly not fucking “limited” or “controlled” enough (and by definition really can’t be) as a number of corpses are testament of. When your object is to ‘break’ a prisoner for information, you’re not being controlled and limited, Mr. O’Brien.
In the recently released government memos there is a claim that Sheik what’s his face told (taunted?) his interrogators that another attack was coming but, using non-coercive interrogation techniques, he would not reveal any actionable intelligence they could use to stop it. – Now a momentary digression: I think it is wise to keep an eye on what the government is telling us, and they may be misrepresenting the facts in this case.
Almost certainly they are, because they don’t want to go to jail.
On the other hand, I have no specific rational basis to disbelieve that they were acting in good faith based on the circumstances at the knowledge they had at the time.
Yes, you do. They were breaking the law and knew it.
So I’ll stipulate for purposes of this conversation that there is a 60% chance they are telling the truth and a 40% chance that they are lying. – So anyway, if this report is anywhere near true, then this is a real world “ticking time bomb’ scenario, not a jack Bauer TV show. What to do?
[etc etc]
You would torture him repeatedly, yes. And whatever info he gave you would inevitably lead to the torture of others, and the ball would be well rolling.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:22 am
[quote]Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a counterterrorism specialist who taught at the Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school in California, likened waterboarding to drowning and said those who experience it will say or do anything to make it stop, rendering the information they give nearly useless.
This bizarre line of reasoning has always fascinated me. We are to believe that waterboarding is so awful that “those who experience it will say or do anything to make it stop” and yet this somehow motivates subjects to give false information? As I try to put myself into the situation I can imagine that I might try and resist at first, and then get so freaked out that I could not thinking rationally and start saying anything that came into my head to get them to stop. But, when they found out the information I gave them is false and come back for another round of waterboarding, if it is really as horrific as Nance claims, I think I might then spill my guts to prevent going through it again. And this time I think I would be motivated to tell the truth in hopes that they would not deem it necessary to have another go at me.
If what Nance says is true, then why does the military waste time and money training our troops in resistance techniques? Seems they should drop the “R” from SERE, SEE is catchier anyway…
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:35 am
Burntham, you’re overlooking the obvious possibility that the person being tortured will not know the answers to a lot the questions being asked. He will be forced to answer anyway.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:38 am
Probability, I should say.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Bill, Your dogmatic faith in your beliefs is impressive…
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Burntham,
Your reasoning assumes that the interrogators know the truth, and stop when you tell it to them.
As we learned yesterday, torture was used to confirm what the administration “knew” about the Saddam-al Qaeda link. In fact, the subject who told the truth about there being no such link was tortured until he provided false information about there being a link.
If what Nance says is true, then why does the military waste time and money training our troops in resistance techniques? Because our Cold War enemies used to make a habit of torturing people into giving false confessions. Ask John McCain, who confessed on camera to all sorts of war crimes.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Bill, Your dogmatic faith in your beliefs is impressive…
This is that thing where anyone who doesn’t come around to your way of seeing things is being ‘dogmatic’ isn’t it.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Bill,
Yes, I will concede the point, that is yet another risk of aggressive interrogation. Again, I can only hope that the interrogators are ethical enough, well trained enough, and intuitive enough to discern when they have drained a source of all useful information and stop picking on him.
I admit it, I do not have a dogmatic faith that I am correct. I acknowledge the risks of the course of action I am advocating. I also realize there are always unintended consequences that neither of us have thought of, for both choices. That It is a difficult issue and there are no good choices.
On the other hand, you have not once addressed the risk inherent in the inevitable situation where a detainee does have actionable information and that doing things your way may inadvertently cause thousands of deaths.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:29 pm
[...] got an email the other day objecting to my April 22 blog post “Torture Still Doesn’t Work” making the following argument: Your blog headline is laughably ignorant in stating that torture [...]
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Yes, I will concede the point, that is yet another risk of aggressive interrogation. Again, I can only hope that the interrogators are ethical enough, well trained enough, and intuitive enough to discern when they have drained a source of all useful information and stop picking on him.
And that is a very foolish thing to ‘hope’ for. And there is ample evidence around that you have little reason to go on hoping. Torture means overcoming another person’s will to resist, which leads to injury and, inevitably, some deaths, with no way of determining beforehand whether the person you’ve decided to torture ‘deserves’ such treatment. (But we only torture the ‘bad guys’, right?)
I admit it, I do not have a dogmatic faith that I am correct. I acknowledge the risks of the course of action I am advocating. I also realize there are always unintended consequences that neither of us have thought of, for both choices. That It is a difficult issue and there are no good choices.
You may be acknowledging the ‘risks’ but you don’t seem to be acknowledging the profound moral wrong. Neither that it’s unambiguously illegal. If that makes me dogmatic so be it. I don’t want to pay taxes to a government that tortures people, illegally. And I don’t want to legalize torture under any circumstances.
On the other hand, you have not once addressed the risk inherent in the inevitable situation where a detainee does have actionable information and that doing things your way may inadvertently cause thousands of deaths.
And so ‘may’ doing things the torture way. You can’t credibly patronize someone about sparing X number of lives in the short term in isolation from the clear drawbacks of the methods used to do so. So again, no, I don’t think resolving to save a thousand lives ‘by any means possible’ (and what’s the cut off number of lives? should we torture if it’s only 50 people, or 25, who might die? how about a helpless little old lady?), as a matter of legal policy, is necessarily worth the corrosion to our democracy, the rule of law, or (the admittedly tattered remains of) our moral standing in the world. I don’t actually value ‘the survival of the republic’ over and above any form that republic needs to morph itself into in order to survive.
And let’s not pretend torture is the silver bullet for ticking bombs. Skilled interrogators have figured out ways of getting the vital info they need without resorting to evil Khmer Rouge tactics. This was known perfectly well by knowledgeable people before the Bush/Cheney torture gambit, which, crucially, was aggressively implemented irrespective of any time bomb scenarios. No, ticking bombs were simply assumed to exist, and so shall they always be when ‘the gloves are off.’ We don’t know what we don’t know, after all.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:32 pm
You’re torturing me, Bill. Please stop.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
[...] claim that torture is necessary in some situations because lives are on the line. But it doesn’t work. It isn’t effective; the same information can be gathered through legal avenues that [...]